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Two Bavarian Junior Rangers visiting!

mandag 19. august 2019
af Selina Lagerbauer and Lea Krieger

It’s our first day in Denmark after our flight from Munich landed in Aalborg yesterday. This morning began at 6 am, we were getting ready for our trip to Skagen to visit the Bird Observatory. The team of the Station was up even earlier than us (which is way too early to be honest), counting the birds at the sea while sitting on some dunes. Unfortunately, it was too windy to catch and band or ring birds. So, after we arrived in Skagen we immediately joined the Team at World’s End Number 3. No, we didn’t see Jack Sparr- Captain! Captain Jack Sparrow.

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The coolest bird we saw at the Tip of Skagen was the Turnstone. He just kept turning those stones as if his life depended on it. Well, it really depends on turning stones, because he needs to find food.

Another fascinating thing were the Gannets diving headfirst into the stormy waves of the sea. After we finished counting birds for hours, we watched the gulls roosting on the beach, just living their life. We tried to read the numbers on the rings we discovered on some of their legs. We learned that great black-backed gull has ‘Leberkas’ colored legs. (‘Leberkas’ is a national dish in Bavaria. You must come to Bavaria and try it. Now.)

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While World’s End Number 4 arrived in form of a gigantic thunderstorm (Thanks Thor) and made us think that we would die – or at least that’s what we thought would happen – we entered the data from the count of the early morning into the computer. After we ate a much-needed lunch, we tried to open the nets in high hopes of catching one or two birds, but life decided to disappoint us and let it rain…again. Instead, we opened a magical freezer and looked at birds. They were dead. That is a weird thing to write, but it was interesting to look at birds so close without them flying right away or attacking us.

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After the rain shower, we decided to make a short bike tour to Jennes Sø. On the way there we kind of lost someone from the team. But it’s okay, he was happy in the bushes on his dangerous quest to take an epic picture of a Crested Tit. Very dangerous.

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It was a fantastic start for our two weeks in Denmark. Thank you very much for reading this. I suggest you read more of this blog whilst you still can, before I find you. Okay, that was a joke. But if you’re still interested in the work of the Bird Observatory you can click on more entries for more interesting Information.

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People: Simon S. Christiansen, Christina Ninou, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Knud Pedersen, Selina Lagerbauer, Lea Krieger.

Soundtrack while writing this blog entry: Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton: Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)

Fieldfare, penduline tits and wart-biter

søndag 18. august 2019
af Chris Stolz

Late yesterday night, Martin and I went out for night-catching. In the fuzzy light of the torch, we saw a lump laying on the beach at Grenen. A roosting gull? Careful to not make any sound, catching-net ready, we approached slowly. A little closer the presumed gull turned out to be a grey seal pup!

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Not far away, another pup with its mother were resting on the moonlit beach as well. Birds were not captured that night, despite the ponds on the beach looking good for waders, there was little activity. Therefore we will continue to go out for night-catching in the upcoming nights.

The day started with catching and ringing birds at Sardinkrattet with the full team. After the storm yesterday, we were happy to see that the wind had settled down and were hoping for some good catching numbers. The first round brought us a diverse catch of wren (gærdesmutte), redstart (rødstjert) and the first fieldfare (sjagger) of the month – maybe a sign of the approaching autumn?

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The next hours however brought mainly willow warblers (løvsanger), lesser (gærdesanger) and common whitethroats (tornsanger). The main highlight came in form of four 1K penduline tits (pungmejse), that were flying over our heads and landed shortly in a bush not far away, but unfortunately did not decide to end up in our nets. This is one of the largest flocks that has been recorded on Grenen in the last years.

Later Kurt, Martin and Yehonatan showed a group of tourists the nature restauration area close to the observatory on a LIFE-tour. Highlight of this tour was this wart-biter (vortebider):

vortebider

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In the meanwhile, a little conference of Danish bird-ringers was held in our facilities. This “league of extraordinary experienced ringers” were so kind to donate a nesting box to us! Simon and Knud had also presentations at the event. William left us after his participation at the conference – thanks for your stay!

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Ringing (Grenen – Sardinkrattet):

Eurasian Wren – Gærdesmutte – 1
Common Redstart – Rødstjert – 1
Fieldfare – Sjagger – 1
Eurasian Reed Warbler – Rørsanger – 4
Icterine Warbler – Gulbug – 2
Lesser Whitethroat – Gærdesanger – 6
Common Whitethroat – Tornsanger – 6
Garden Warbler – Havesanger – 1
Common Chiffchaff – Gransanger – 1
Willow Warbler – Løvsanger – 9
Eurasian Blue Tit – Blåmejse – 1
Great Tit – Musvit – 3
Lesser Redpoll – Lille Gråsisken – 1

Total: 37

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, William Aarrestrup, Kurt Rasmussen, Knud Pedersen.

Soundtrack while writing this blog entry: The Myrros: Arena Negra

Oil and chains

lørdag 17. august 2019
af Martin Georgiev

The new day found Christina, Christian, Yehonathan and me walking along Nordstrand trying to catch some waders using hand-nets and a torch. Our best attempt was a ringed plover which was already unsuccessful :(. Here I will quote the great Homer Simpson “Trying is the first step to failure” however we do believe that it is also the first step towards success :).

Expecting foul weather, the next morning we went to bed to properly recharge our batteries. In the morning most of us got up at a reasonable time except for Christina who was up as 7 as usual. In hindsight that is definitely the right time to get up however I feel like after getting up early for a while you always think that sleeping more will make things better however oversleeping also is not a great option - everything must hang in the balance.

As soon as I was up I headed straight for Kattegat for an invigorating swim only to find the waves full lion's mane AGAIN… well, you know what they say: If you can't beat 'em, join' em! When I was done jelly-dodging an awesome avocado-fueled breakfast I was ready for the tasks of the day.

Since it was the perfect day for some indoor work I decided to dedicate myself to the bicycles. Aaah, the bicycle. Such a glorious invention. So precise, elegant, practical, sturdy, eco-friendly and, if that's not enough, good for your heart! What more can you ask for in a mode of transportation?

Chains, chains, and chains again! In my opinion, the bike part which deserves the most attention and gives the biggest payoff when taken care of properly. A metal brush, some elbow grease, a lot of actual grease and three hours later and our four trusty metal stalls were fresh as cucumbers!

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In the meanwhile, Christian was sorting the never-ending photos in our photo archive. After that, the three of them set off to Grenen for an afternoon observation session where they saw the two surf scooters who seem to have made Denmark their new home! Howdy partners: D Other sightings included six great shoes and the usual variety of seabirds.

In the afternoon Simon kindly provided his car to help us in shopping for the next couple of days. Ok bikes are amazing but cars also have their uses haha. Anyway after a rich dinner prepared by my amazing gastronomically gifted stationmates Christian and I set off for nightcatching, updates tomorrow :)

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, William Aarrestrup.

'goo-ko'

fredag 16. august 2019
af Christina Ninou

Another full day for us, starting with the penultimate CES ringing. Although the weather conditions seemed to be perfect for catching birds, the day was slow for the first hours. Fortunately, the variety of species was relatively big than the other times. Highlight of the morning at the CES was one of the last birds we caught, the Cuckoo (Gøg)! A juvenile bird that most likely left its host nest some days ago. European cuckoos have a very interesting behavior when it comes to breeding. Before they are ready to lay an egg, they observe other species nests to find the best one to lay their egg in it. This is known as brood parasitism. Common cuckoos’ appearance is like a Eurasian sparrowhawks’ which is a predatory bird. This is one of the main advantages that the species has in order to make brood parasitism easier, while it helps them get access to the potential hosts. They can lay up to 20 eggs in one season, but they only lay one egg in each host nest.

Other species that were ringed were the pied (Broget Fluesnapper) and the spotted flycatcher (Grå Fluesnapper), a wren (Gærdesmutte), willow warblers (Løvsanger) and more!

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Martin, Chris and I, after coming back to the observatory, immediately got in touch with Kat, to go and replace the battery at the receiver where she installed a couple of weeks ago, since unfortunately there was a problem with the first one. This was exciting for us though, because we got to do some biology field work and felt good. So, we learnt how to use the system and read a little the program of the receiver. We now hope that the Norwegian tagged birds will come by Skagen and give some info.

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The other cool thing this day was the Harbor porpoises skull that Martin found on the North beach while he was walking in the evening. It is well preserved and when the whole process of cleaning is over there will be a new nice specimen for the lab of the observatory.

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In the evening one of Denmarks most experienced ringers William Aarrestrup arrived the Observatory to participate in a Conference for Danish Ringers that from back in time and still today has had a big influence on the history of ringing in Denmark. On Sunday these the participants will visit us here at the Observatory as a part of the event. When it got completely dark, we decided to go for a night catching to the north beach, hoping that the rain and wind would attract some waders. Unfortunately, we didn't capture anything but we will continue trying, since the weather is helping.

Ringing (Jennes Sø):

European cuckoo - Gøg - 1

Wren - Gærdesmutte -1

Common whitethroat – Tornsanger - 1

Blackcap - Munk - 1

Chiffchaff – Gransanger - 2

Willow warbler – Løvsanger - 7

Spotted flycatcher - Grå fluesnapper - 1

Pied flycatcher - Broget fluesnapper - 1

Great tit – Musvit -1

Total: 16

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Yehonatan Ben Aroia, Christian Stolz, Michael Ancher, William Aarrestrup.

 

First days in Skagen

torsdag 15. august 2019
af Yehonatan ben aroia

So after a long way  i arrived Skagen a couple days  ago and after getting some rest, going to sleep early for long day of bird ringing and watching.

so the day started at 4:30 when my alarm woke me up after a good sleep, and after a couple of minutes me, Christina and Martin were in our way to open up the nets in the Grenen ringing site.

at about 05:20 we opened up all of the nets, then me and Martin went looking for some Sandwich Terns-Splitterne so maybe we can ring some rings for our tern project.

yesterday we saw a flock of 30 tern roosting on the beach but this morning we only saw a few flying around hunting for fish but we did not see the flock from the other day.

but we still saw an amazing sunrise on beach and on our way back to ringing site we saw a Red throated loon-Rødstrubet Lom, which was new for me.

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When we arrived to the ringing site, Christina and Simon were already ringing the bird.

It was a nice first ringing in Skagen for me and I hope the weather will be nice for many more ringing while I am here.

On the way back the to lighthouse we had a nice view of a cute family of Yellowhammers-Gulspurv

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After the ringing we had back to eat some lunch at the station and have some rest.

In the after noon we went to the CES location to put up the nets for tomorrows morning ringing.

I already took a scope with me because I wanted to head to beach later to look for the Surf scooter (Brilleand) that’s hanging here for a while. After we had put up the nets for the CES I went to the beach and started looking for the Surf scooter in a flock of common scooter which was pretty annoying but after a few minutes I spotted in inside the flock and also got a record photo of it ( a very bad one ) and then headed back to have some sleep before me and Christina were going night catching later on.

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After a good after noon sleep, me and Christina went on a night catching on the beach which was pretty poor and had not many birds so we went looking for some wader in the little lake near the beach.

When we approached the lake we already seen a few waders flying around and then a Greenshank (Hvidklire) landed a few meters from us in the reeds, we were very close to catch but the bird ended up escaping while we looked for it and almost stepped on it.

On the way back we saw a very cute seal to say goodbye and maybe more luck some other time with the night catching.

Ringing (Sardinkrattet)

Marsh warbler - Kærsanger – 1

Reed warbler – Rørsanger - 5

Icterine warbler – Gulbug - 1

Common whitethroat – Tornsanger - 7

Willow warbler – Løvsanger - 16

Robin – Rødhals - 1

Great tit – Musvit -1

Chiffchaff – Gransanger -3

Lesser whitethroat – Gærdesanger -2

Garden warbler - Havesanger - 1

Total: 38

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Yehonatan ben aroia

 

The great chase of V97

onsdag 14. august 2019
af Martin Georgiev

Following yesterday’s close encounter with a sandwich tern with a coloured ring which we were unable to read today, we had an important mission to accomplish: Read That Ring! It was also Yehonathan’s first morning at the station, so he was already eager for some action! Bear in mind he politely refused my suggestion of him having some rest after his long journey from Israel. More proof that the words volunteer and exhausted don’t work well in the same sentence. A flock of sandwich terns was spotted soon after the search began and lucky enough the tern with the coloured ring from yesterday was one of the flock members! We immediately set off to read the ring. The weather was very windy which gave us the opportunity to get close to the flock from downwind. We were happy to find out that two more terns in had metal rings on them – three out of twenty-seven is a great ratio. One by one we got on all fours and started slowly crawling towards the flock in order not to startle them. We were equipped with the trusty Swarovski telescope, a pair of bins and a field notebook. We took TERNS looking through the scope as the wind made it increasingly difficult as time passed. Two times the birds took off and gave us mini heart attacks thinking we wouldn’t get a chance this good again. Fate smiled on us both times as the terns peacefully descended after being started by a sudden strong gust of the wind.

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Our first success came when we read the coloured ringed – V97. One letter and two numbers that brought us so much joy. The next treat came when Yehonathan managed to take a high-res photo of the ring, always an amazing addition to any fieldwork! Our third treat was actually reading one of the metal rings which was on an adult tern. It took us a long time however we managed in the end.

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Upon return, we undertook the weekly cleaning.

In the evening Simon treated us all to a lovely dinner (and a beer of course) in town. It was a refreshing breath of the urban life that we have already forgotten. 

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 People: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Yehonathan Ben Aroya

Heidi's last day...

tirsdag 13. august 2019
af Christina Ninou

After the successful night catching up with Simon and Martin we had some sleep and after 4 hours we got up to get ready for the next round. Martin and I prepared our scopes to go to the world's end for sightings and sandwich tern (splitter) ring readings. We got there when the sun had just begun to rise creating fascinating colorations on the little poodles on the beach. We quickly found a flock of sandwich terns and started trying to read some rings. It took us a while until we got something out of it since the birds, as if they knew, were flying away just when we started reading the first letters. . .

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Besides that, there were many birds flying around big flocks of Red knots, dunlins (ordinary ryle), sanderlines (sand runners) and some turnstones (rock faces) and ringed plovers (big clay collar) were making my day! We also spotted the young ringed plover we called a few weeks ago and made sure he was perfectly fine, practicing the art of flight. The usual suspects: gannets (great), great black-backed gulls (blackbags) and herring gulls (gulls) were foraging over the sea while Great schuas (stork jove) were hunting them down.

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When we came back we were happy to see that Andreas was here, who came by the station to say hi! We all sat together had a coffee and talked. Heidi was already preparing dinner since she was making home-made pizzas and she was making the dough.

The new ringing site near Grenen is being created while we started cutting the lines for the nets and we are really hoping that this site will bring various and many birds into the nets!

Unfortunately, today is the last day of Heidi here in Skagen and we are all really sad…. We had a great time with her these two weeks were she was around! Besides really cool ringing with her beeing the leading ringer we also had nice evenings, bbq, moult sessions, video creations, birdwatching, guided tours ... We will miss her as well as her cooking skills! We all felt much better after trying here amazing creations. Vegetarian pizzas and a super cheesecake. (See you in Copenhagen;))

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Late at night, we welcomed a new volunteer Yehonathan from Israel! Another birder in the house !! Looking forward to ringing and birdwatching with him.

 People: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen, Yehonathan Ben Aroya

Hollandsk visit

mandag 12. august 2019
af Heidi Vibe Frederiksen

Vejrudsigten lovede byger og godt med blæst, så alle var indstillet på, at denne morgen desværre ikke skulle startes ud med ringmærkning. Men det betyder ikke altid, at man kan sove længe, man må i stedet udnytte sådan en blæsende morgen og tage på morgenobs. Så det gjorde Anders, Christina og jeg! På yderste klitrække mødte vi to andre morgenfriske folk, Knud Pedersen og Anders Bojesen. 

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Efterårets vadefugletræk viste sig fra sin gode side med blandt andet stenvender, krumnæbbet ryle, islandsk ryle og næsten 50 hjejler. Desuden lå de to spektakulære brilleænder fint på havet foran os. Mens Christina og jeg nød de trækkende fugle, gik Anders en tur ned på stranden for at kigge nærmere på de rastende splitterner. Her fandt han en splitterne med farvering, som han formåede at få aflæst! Splitternen er mærket i Holland. 

Ole Friis Larsen har berettet på vores facebookside, at han for nyligt har mødt en tysk ringmærker i Blåvand, som var på udkig efter farvemærkede splitterner. Den tyske fyr er med i et tysk-hollandsk projekt, som mærker disse fugle. Gennem projektet har man fundet ud af, at splitternerne med farveringe bliver aflæst langt inde i Østersøen. Her i landet hersker der dog tvivl om, om fuglene trækker til Kattegat gennem Limfjorden eller kommer op forbi Skagen. Det kan være, at vi kan få aflæst nogle flere og være med til at løse et lille fuglemysterie! 

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Mens vi andre slappede af derhjemme efter morgenens tur ud i blæsten, tog Martin sig af turisterne omkring stationen. Han fik snakket med en masse turister og formidlet informationer om Skagen Fuglestation og de smukke omgivelser. 

Til aften tog Christina, Martin og Simon ud i den ruskende blæst for at fange fugle på stranden. Og heldigvis var der gevinst: en ung Svartbag! Mågen blev studeret og ringmærket, inden den igen blev sat fri i blæsten på stranden. 

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Folk: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen, Knud Pedersen, Anders Bojesen.

Efterårets komme

søndag 11. august 2019
af Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen

Da morgenen bød på en del byger brugte vi dagens tidlige timer på forskellige indendørsopgaver. Kl. 11 troppede to modige franskmænd op til denne uges LIFE-tur i det naturgenoprettede område vest for fuglestationen. Selvom turen blev en noget våd og dyrefattig affære kunne Martin og jeg servere friskplukkede mosebølle-bær og tranebær til de to deltagere. Tilbage ved fuglestationen viste vi dem de døde fugle i fryseren og vores ringmærkningslaboratorium, inden at de tilfredse drog videre mod Grenens spids.

Da vores tur var færdig tog Simon imod en gruppe på 35 historieinteressede pensionister, som kom for at få en rundvisning og høre om fyrets historie.

Heidi og Christina brugte meget af dagen på at lave en fin film om stor præstekrave, som kan ses på vores facebookside. Om eftermiddagen lavede Heidi desuden en lækker cheesecake med en gelé lavet på lokal havtorn. Ikke dårligt!

På trods af et fortsat ret ustadigt vejr over middag, besluttede jeg at prøve lykken på Grenen. Det viste sig at være en god beslutning idet regnen havde skabt flere småsøer på stranden, som tiltrak mange måger, terner og vadefugle. Ved min ankomst var den første fugl jeg fik øje på en fin ungfugl af sorthovedet måge, som blev hængende i området resten af eftermiddagen. I løbet af fem timers observationer blev det også til 7 almindelige kjover, 11 storkjover og 10 vadefuglearter. Det føltes fedt for første gang siden min ankomst, at se så mange fugle på Grenen, og det gav en dejlig fornemmelse af at efteråret for alvor er ved at starte. Let the party begin!

sorthmaage

Ungfugle af sorthovedet måge er i sandhed delikate på trods af deres ikke så markante farver.

Folk: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen

 

Warblers, warblers and more warblers!

lørdag 10. august 2019
af Martin Georgiev

After our amazing barbeque the previous night and the constant rain our sleep was cosy and refreshing! Shortly after getting up I saw several rays of sunlight trying to make their way through the clouds. That was all the encouragement I needed for a swim in Kattegat. It was considerably windy however the water was cool but welcoming. Half an hour later and one too many gulps of saltwater I was ready for a shower and some lunch! Having said that I really can’t recommend a daily swim enough, given the opportunity of course. For me personally the list of benefits is endless: it’s an awesome way to start the day, when it’s not too wavy it is great exercise and the cold water seems to have a cleansing effect on my mind. Just gets your thoughts arranged in the right way somehow, hard to describe really. Furthermore, since I’ve turned this into a daily challenge – going in the sea on its own gives me a boost in productivity knowing I’m a day closed to completing my challenge of swimming every day while I’m in Denmark!

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After lunch the time came for our much-anticipated moult & identification session with Simon. The prep work which Simon gave us over the last couple of days was to choose several species to focus on. We chose identification. Namely differentiating between the common Reed warbler (Rorsanger) (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) and the rarer Marsh warbler (Kaersanger) and Blyth’s warbler (Buskrørsanger) (Acrocephalus dumetorum). The main goal was to be able to correctly identify the species based on their subtle morphological differences while in the field. Luckily Simon pointed us in the correct direction enabling us to find the appropriate literature which greatly aided our skills. We also spoke about how important it is to have in mind that rarer species of warblers may be caught in the area.

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We then moved on to the taxonomic mess known as Phylloscopus. Here the focus was on differentiating the three common species: Chiff chaff (Gransanger) (Phylloscopus collybita), Willow warbler (Løvsanger) (Phylloscopus trochilus) and the Wood warbler (Skovsanger) (Phylloscopus sibilatrix) from rarer species from the South and East such as Dusky warbler (Brun Løvsanger)  (Phylloscopus fuscatus) and Hume’s leaf warbler (Himalayasanger) (Phylloscopus humei).

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When we had reached the point where now new information could be absorbed Christina and I started discussing dinner. Since we take turns cooking each day, it takes a bit of creativity and prep work in order to prepare a meal that would please both vegetarians and meat-eaters. Just as our food brainstorming session was starting to bear fruit Simon told us to be ready to meet him at his house in an hour in order to meet his friend Andreas on time. Much to our surprise we were scheduled to be eating at his house in two hours. A gentle details our dear friend Anders neglected to mention at any point the previous days.. thanks Andreas.

The evening was lovely and relaxing. Andreas was an outstanding host and we are forever grateful for inviting us to his home!

People: Simon S. Christiansen, Martin Y. Georgiev, Christina Ninou, Anders Odd Wulff Nielsen, Heidi Vibe Frederiksen, Sander HB Villumsen, Andreas Egelund Christensen.


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